Lallan Sweets - a trip back in time !

Some books take you somewhere you've never been.

And then there are books that take you somewhere you remember dearly.

Lallan Sweets felt a little like that to me.

Set in the small town of Siyaka in the 1990s, the book follows Tara, her family, an old friendship, a sweet shop, and a rather unusual search for the secret ingredient in her grandfather's laddoos.

But strangely, it wasn't the mystery that stayed with me.

It was the world around it, the 1990s, those Hindi songs, the small-town streets, the familiar shops.

The conversations that seemed to have nowhere urgent to go.

There is something wonderfully unhurried about the India in this book.

Life seems to happen at a human pace.

People meet, they talk, they wait.

They drop by someone's house.

Someone knows someone who knows someone else.

People would gather, gossip, argue, laugh and somehow keep track of one another's lives.

And perhaps that is what I enjoyed most.

Nothing feels particularly extravagant.

There are no grand lives being lived.

No extraordinary people trying to conquer the world.

Just ordinary people with ordinary problems, ordinary relationships and ordinary days.

And somehow, those ordinary days feel enough.

The book brought back a version of the 1990s that I sometimes wonder whether do we fully appreciate it anymore.

A time when a song could stay with you for an entire day because you had heard it once on the radio.

When a cassette could be played over and over until you knew every word.

When Bollywood songs weren't just background music. They became part of the atmosphere of growing up.

The book carries some of that 90s pop-culture world too, including references to Baba Sehgal, Daler Mehndi and Shah Rukh Khan.

And suddenly, while reading, you aren't just following Tara's story.

You are remembering your own.

Perhaps that's what nostalgia really is.

Not wanting the past back, but just recognising a feeling you haven't felt in a long time.

There is something else I liked about Lallan Sweets.

It doesn't seem to be in a great hurry to become important.

It is happy being a story about a family, a sweet shop, old friendships, food, affection and the small complications of everyday life.

The publisher describes it as a story about "love, family, food and the little things that matter in life."

And perhaps the phrase that stayed with me is the little things.

Because somewhere along the way, we have become accustomed to stories that need to be thrilling.

Lives that need to be extraordinary.

People who need to be ambitious, successful, adventurous, remarkable.

Even our entertainment seems to need a hook, a twist, a crisis, a climax.

Lallan Sweets remindes us that there is another kind of pleasure.

The pleasure of simply spending time in a world of watching people go about their lives.

Of noticing what they eat, what they listen to, where they sit, how they speak to one another.

The pleasure of nothing much happening.

And perhaps that is why the book felt comforting to me.

Because in reality, life is like that.

Most days don't contain a great revelation.

Most conversations aren't life-changing.

Most afternoons are forgettable.

We go to work.

We come home.

We eat something.

We talk to someone.

We listen to a song.

We worry about something that may not matter tomorrow.

And then another day begins.

Yet when we look back at our lives, sometimes these are precisely the moments we remember.

A particular song playing in the background.

A shop we used to visit.

The smell of something cooking.

A summer afternoon.

Someone sitting beside us.

A conversation we didn't realise would become a memory.

Maybe that's what Lallan Sweets gave me.

Not a lesson or a grand insight.

But just a gentle reminder that a life doesn't have to be dramatic to be memorable.

Sometimes there is something beautiful about a story that simply lets people be people.

A little messy.

A little funny.

A little foolish.

A little hopeful.

Living ordinary lives.

And perhaps, in a world that constantly tells us to make our lives bigger, louder and more exciting, there is something quietly reassuring about being reminded of a time when ordinary was enough.

I closed the book thinking less about the secret ingredient in the laddoos... and more about all the ingredients that once made everyday life feel so full.

A song.

A sweet shop.

A familiar street.

A family.

An old friend.

An unhurried afternoon.

And that strange feeling of being transported somewhere you may never have actually lived... but somehow remember.

Shunyam Shelf